FORT WORTH– Before Circle Theatre’s Exit, Pursued by a Bear,North Texas’ exposure to Lauren Gunderson’s work was apparently limited to a single staged reading. We’ve been missing out, folks. If this show is characteristic of her work, Gunderson is one of the most creative and entertaining playwrights in America.

Exit, Pursued by a Bear mashes together an affectionately naturalistic and unpatronizing look at young people in the small-town South with the most exquisitely stylized theatrical technique. Nan Carter (Taylor Staniforth) has decided to leave her abusive husband, Kyle (Duke Anderson). She has enlisted her two best friends, Sweetheart (Kristi Mills) and Simon (Jerry Downey), to help. Her plan, basically, is to duct-tape the guy to his easy chair and let the neighborhood bears eat him up as she hightails it out of town.

Sweetheart, an aspiring actress making ends meet by stripping at a local club, has turned Nan on to Shakespeare. So Nan’s farewell to her spouse consists of a number of plays-within-the play, soliloquies and so forth. What gives Gunderson’s piece its uniquely piquant comedy is this collision of down-home characters and situations with the fanciful literary structure.

Shakespeare fans might recognize the title of Exit, Pursued by a Bear as a stage direction from the Bard’s The Winter’s Tale. The stage directions in Gunderson’s script take on their own independent lives. Circle’s director, Krista Scott, has them projected on screens to the right and left of Clare Floyd DeVries’ set. They even include their own punch lines.

For all her clever post-modern devices, Gunderson mostly gets her laughs and other emotional responses the old-fashioned way, through characterization.Nanis a strong and smart young woman – not the type you would stereotypically expect to be caught up in an abusive situation. She’s politically aware, to the point of near-worship of fellow Georgian former President Jimmy Carter. But she’s still potentially vulnerable to her memories of the good times with her husband.

Kyle is frequently drunk and always blind to his own faults, but he’s no dummy, either. He knows how to play on his wife’s affections, and he’s not completely without a conscience..Anderson is an interesting choice for the role: He nails the accent and the attitudes, but he’s young enough and slight enough to make us feel some sympathy. Staniforth is simply perfect as Nan. If you don’t know someone just like her, you just don’t get out enough.

The friends add more than some funny lines. Sweetheart’s speeches are frequently on the verge of caricature, but then she’ll say something to surprise you. Mills makes sure you don’t underestimate the character for long. Simon may be the funniest funny-gay-guy role ever written. Once again, Gunderson goes right to the brink of sitcom silliness, but never falls into the pit. Downey milks the lines for every possible laugh.

More Gunderson, please, and quickly. Can she really be this good all the time?

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News, reviews, nuggets and tidbits from the local arts scene, including literature, theater, classical music, opera, dance and the visual arts.